Israel issues eviction orders to 40 bedouin families near Jerusalem

Israeli forces and civil administration officers issued demolition and eviction orders to 40 Palestinian families in East Jerusalem late Sunday. Popular Committee Spokesman Hani Halabiya told Ma'an that civil administration officers delivered the orders to families in the Jabal al-Baba neighborhood of al-Ezariya. The families, who mainly live in steel structures and tents, must leave their homes by March 3. Around 300 Palestinian Bedouins from Jahalin live in 22 homes made of steel, wood and tin boards, as well as tents, Halabiya said. Israel is trying to displace the community of Jabal al-Baba to expand the nearby settlement of Maale Adumim. Last week, Israeli forces bulldozed five steel structures belonging to the Bedouin al-Jahalin community in al-Eizariya, leaving 55 people homeless. In the 1950s, the al-Jahalin community was forcibly displaced from its ancestral home in the Negev desert and resettled East of Jerusalem. Israeli forces displaced groups of the community in the 1990s to make way for the Maale Adumim settlement.